There's an actual world corruption index. 1 is absolute corruption, 10 is no corruption at all. America is currently 7.1 to China's 3. For perspective the highest and lowest are New Zealand's 9.5, and Somalia and North Korea's 1s. If we invert that, your uncle's experiences are pretty close.

I believe corruption is huge in the United States, but it is a different kind of corruption than in other places so it is not as readily apparent. The U.S. government is greatly influenced by economic interests that promote consumerism leading to over use of such things as fossil fuels and processed foods and also suppression of such things as environmentalism and universal health care.

No just thought it was cute she doesn't think there is corruption here. There is tons it is just better hidden and less in public. To put it one way is they won't demolish your house but they sure will screw you out of it basically.

There is to be sure, but compared to places like China and India where you often literally have to bribe any bureaucrat to get anything done, it's seriously small fry. In our day to day lives government corruption generally doesn't interfere anywhere near as much.

To be fair that has just been relabeled lobbying here. Or getting permits in certain cities corruption seems way more common then it should be. I know the corruption in other countries is more open and obvious but it feels like it is more built into the system and hidden here. I am likely just whining though because I think it could be better.

I definitely think we can do better, and there is an unacceptable amount of corruption in our government.

But compared to places like china and such, it really is a lot smaller. Maybe "miniscule" is stretching it, but the corruption in china is very very bad, where nearly every transaction you have requires a bribe.

Compared to most of the world, the US is a fuckin' choir boy. Of all the countries that I've done political research on, maybe Canada is less corrupt. It gets blown out of proportion here because our media latches on to every little instance and plasters it all over everything. We have zero personal privacy laws here, and thus we have 10x the corruption stories and .10 of the actual corruption (compared to Germany, France, and the UK).

You realize that every country for the most part has speeding tickets right? You cant call it Amearica's Tax when it is everywhere. If you would slow your ass down and stop endangering others you wouldn't have to worry about that would you now?

Driving 60 through a 35MPH speed trap that was 55MPH 1/4 mile back is a tax. I literally had a judge, while in court, give the cop the look of disapproval once I explained the shenanigans these 3 cops were up to, pulling over 3-4 cars at a time, passing out tickets in this trap. They had one on the side with the radar, one in the middle of the road pointing people to pull over, and one walking car to car passing out tickets. All 3 cops were in the court room, with looks of shame once I outed them. The judge asks "how many of you in the room have this same story", 4-5 hands went up. Judge was not pleased at the cops. The ticket was reduced to non-moving, I still paid a $80 tax.

Its a god damn tax/toll/levy that pathetic townships collect when you come through, and their method of enforcement is playing shell games with the posted speed limits.

There is always a risk at higher speeds, and the faster the speed the higher the risk. If speed limits were not inforced you have people going 65 in 35 zones and accidents would be far more fatal. Think of cars cresting hill and hitting drivers pulling out or think of jackasses flying through school zones plowing into children. Maybe you should think less about yourself and more about everyone else.

Buddy, you are labouring under some misconceptions. Allow me to bring them to your attention.

1) The speed limit is the safe speed to drive.

Safe speed is dynamic. That is, it varies with the conditions. A safe speed on a road at 0300 AM on a clear, well lit night is very different from a safe speed at 1630 PM in the driving rain with the street lights out. On the whole, people are pretty good at estimating safe speeds. You have the odd motor-head or youth who drives recklessly fast, but these are not deterred by speed limits nor speed camera enforcement. Posted speed limits are static and inflexible, and almost always wrong.

2) Lowered speed limits result in slower driving. Or people consistently drive at the speed limit.

Sorry. People don't change their behaviour quickly (if at all) due to a change in the posted limits. They tend to drive at speeds that are safe for the conditions and work harder to dodge cops and speed traps. This is why lowering the limits results in more revenue, as it is more opportunities to catch people out.

3) Speed is a major factor in road fatalities.

Speed increases the consequences of road accidents, but on the whole primary cause of road accidents are due to other factors like alcohol, fatigue or poor road conditions. There are numerous case studies that show that lowering the speed limits make no difference what so ever to fatality rates. My state of Australia is a good example. We were the last state to have stretches of road without speed limits. These were removed and the city limits were lowered in many places. Around schools (to 40 km/h), in built up areas (from 60 km/h to 50 km/h). Guess what? Overall road fatalities went up significantly. I mean like 20%. They have never been higher. It is fairly safe to say that in this case, speed limits had nothing to do with road fatalities. There are many cases on record which have exactly the same outcomes.

You sir are the one with misconceptions. I'm not sure how many large animal impacts you have there but fatalities caused by deer on the US are high not only that we had highways without speed limits in many of our rural states but had to change that die to the ammount of vehicular deaths that could have been prevented by safer driving at lower speeds.

All it takes is a 1800 pound elk or moose stepping out in front of you at 2am to end your life. Speed limits save lives plain and simple this is not a debate this is a fact.

Also tax dollars and revenue from tickets do go into infrastructure but even if roads were widened that would not be enough. Maybe with better roads you could increase the speed by a little bit, but that will never negate the need for speeding tickets.

You presuppose that without the imposition of generic and restrictive speed limits drivers would have no ability to gauge safe driving speed according to roads and conditions. hey would all of a sudden become these psychotic beings conducting themselves with reckless abandon with no consideration for their property or life, let alone others'. There would be accidents left, right and centre. Hell, I would probably go out tomorrow and total my car while killing a few people.

No I'm not saying that everyone would be driving like bats out of hell what I am stating is that you will see a sharp spike in deaths among teens and people in their 20's. This is the demographic that has the largest amount of deadly accidents due to lack of skill and risk taking.

I will say that when speed limits are set they should be set in upper percentile of the safe driving range to allow the majority of drivers safe compliance. Sharp declines in speed limits that are more than 10 mph should not be legal due to majority of people being in failure of compliance. With all this being said though speed limits are still essecential and play an important role. However governing body needs to do more testing and establish proper limits for every road. http://www.ibiblio.org/rdu/sl-irrel.html

This means that in the US that the US Dept. of Tranportation needs to hire more people in all states to gather constant data to monitor proper speeds on all roads and change them as need be as population shifts and construction is done. Each state should be divided into sections dependant on ammount of roads so a managable ammount of people can be assigned.

To allow proper data collection counter strips can embedded on all of the roads so traffic speeds and traffic density can be monitored and proper speeds can be established. By compliling data, trends can be set, and having accident reports provided could give an indication of areas that need additional review and measures to improve conditions. As well individuals within the dept. can drive around provide feedback as to road conditions and local influence.

On the topic of speed traps and tickets I think that tickets should only given if you are flagrantly breaking the speed limit. For example doing 90 in a 70 zone. Honestly my opinion is that tickets should not be used as a souce of income for cities. Tickets should go to the dept of transportation so funds can be reallocated to areas that need better roads.

All in all though speed limits serve an important purpose keeping traffic flowing at safe speeds. There are factors such as weather that can't be controlled but this where common sense falls into play but there will always be those that don't follow compliance and should be held accountable.

The risks and consequences increase exponentially as you increase speed. Your two seconds' minimum following distance becomes huge, but of course you're probably right on people's bumpers expecting them to never have to brake for an emergency.

In parts of Canada, they did increase the speed limit on highways but in turn have stricter penalties and more cop coverage for speeders. Until you crash, you don't realize how quick you need to react to safely avoid an accident. You can't do this roaring your ass up the highway.

not true, it will just accomodate for the present flow of traffic- most people are above the speed limit most of the time and it doesn't really occur to them-- they are just following the natural flow of traffic. Increasing the speed limit to account for this only takes away a window within which drivers are vulnerable to receiving tickets-- it does not however increase the chance of accidents. Some areas have ridiculously slow speed limits and are prime hunting ground for revenue collection.

How many people really do not pay attention to how fast they are going? Besides I didn't say it'd increase the number of accidents, but it would increase their severity. Some people do read the speed limit, and always go 5 above. The others who don't pay attention will then follow their speed. Now you just have people going faster with a few still speeding (though probably fewer) with worse accidents.

No America's better, they send you to court or you can just pay a hefty fine. At the same time your insurance company gets a piece of the pie as well, because your rates go up, especially if you are young and male.

Being a young male with no moving violations or accidents after driving for 3 years, why should I have to pay more than my friend who has just gotten her license and already been in two unreported accidents during the period where she had her permit??? That seems like discrimination to me...

So discrimination is okay if we back it with "conclusive data"? I really do understand what you mean here... But if we truly do call it discrimination, then conclusive data shouldn't be an excuse...." data" can be bought

It's one of those things that all of us complain about from age 18-25, and then after we have about 10 years' worth of driving experience under our belts, we think, "Damn, I was a fucking idiot, those insurance companies have it right," and roll our eyes at people complaining about the discrimination.

I know, I was absolutely furious over it when I was about 20. But I was also a terrible, risk taking, overconfident, and inattentive driver. Like practically every 20 year old male.

I get pulled over all the time for no reason at all. I'm not speeding or driving erratically -- but of course you come from the mindset where the police are never wrong and the victim must have done something to deserve their treatment.

At least you probably didn't get it because you were some random guy on the street (they pull over whomever there to get the bribe, it's just policy) as opposed to actually breaking the speed limit here. Same way in most Central American countries. Bribes aren't too expensive but when you can get it at any time it's gets kind of old.

I remember reading about a Vietnamese immigrant that tried this and got arrested. After I rode a motorbike around Vietnam I can understand why he thought it was OK.

As a white guy I was told not to even stop if the police tried to pull me over. Other than that, everything is under the table. I remember a guy I met leaving our group at 2 am to go pay off Vietnamese and Laos officials to get his motorcycle across the border.

Met someone that got arrested for pot in Cambodia and the cop only knew how to say "ATM or jail" in English, and also met a couple guys that got out of jail in Thailand. This world can be a crazy place. Apparently less crazy if you have some cash in your pocket though.

Actually, Isn't lobbying just the side effect of letting companies donate. They donate to the people who side on what helps them, so people who side with the companies simply because they have that belief get paid off, and get more to advertise with than those who don't.

At least when it's a written law you know what are your limits. If a law says the minimum start-up capital of banks is 200$ and you got 100$, you don't lose money trying. Really corrupt countries would put no laws, then drive you out of the market by dirty ways.

True, but you can't compare apples and oranges. It's easy to look at a developing nation like Mexico and say "We're so much better than them." But if you want a better comparison you have to look at other countries with similar economies.

It's a bit different in scope though. While I'm sure big deals and politics have their share of corruption, everyday people don't have to deal with it nearly as often - in the places that are really corrupt on the index (I grew up in one of the really corrupt ones) not only is government and business corrupt, but you also have to deal with stuff like being required to bribe someone just for mundane paperwork like car registration, taxes, power bills etc, and constantly checking whether the people selling you food and gas are adulterating it or not. It's not a "you can pay off the cop to not get a ticket" thing, it's a "you will have to bribe people, including the cops, whether you did anything wrong or not".

im not going to argue that ex-soviet countries for instance have a higher corruption than some western countries. But living in the western world and believe that we are corruption free is naive and stupid. Just cause its not as rampart or in the form like where you came from deosnt mean it doesnt exist.

Yet, if we count bailing out banks or printing money or silencing whistleblowers or invading other countries as corruption, the west is one of the most corrupt parts of the world. Luckily we do not count that as corruption here in the west. Props to us.

True story. This is why the west has lower instances of....nearly all types of violent crime and insurrection, has systems of government and finance based on trust, because trust is still possible to a wide enough extent, and can stand to be peaceful enough to look upon itself introspectively? See a place that is actually fucked up. It's like comparing a shadow in the light of day, to candle-light subsumed within darkness; endless night.

If you mean corruption by American standards then you may have a point. But if you mean corruption by third world standards then we live in the greatest fucken country in the world. Take it from me, I have experienced both.

I live in China right now. The corruption is shameless and astonishing. At least our senators and representatives cower and apologize pathetically when they are exposed - these politicians...Well, they're for sure aristocrats in their bearing.

Also there's really no petty corruption here. Almost everything is in the awarding contracts or buying influence with individual politicians. If someone at customs or the DMV demanded a bribe, you'd probably just laugh at them and go to the next window.

Corruption in the USA doesn't ruin your daily life or you trying to be a small business owner. Here in Egypt pre-revolution,you would start a company, buy a shipment of blankets, get all the paperwork in Egypt done, and when the shipments gets to the dock and you need the clearance BAM: Only one guy(connected to the government) can get blanket shipments in. Screw yourself. Throw the blankets in the sea.

If you live in the city (New York, etc.), everything is close together = no need for cars! (May or may not be a good thing)

Also, if you look around close enough, you should be able to find some more authentic Chinese food. They'll be called "Oriental China," "Golden Dragon," etc. Depends where you live and which part of China she's from, of course.

I live in Flagstaff, AZ. The public transportation/a bike will take you anywhere you want to go. The maximum one way commute for anything in town is 8 miles. Buses are reasonably priced (compared to anywhere in CA) and it is an incredibly bike friendly town. You don't actually NEED a car or anything here.

I lived in Flagstaff once. While it is better than most for public transportation, I did indeed need a car although I shared it with my wife and we also have/had a kid at the time. Wait times for buses made it so that many students I know still had to own a car.

Still, in China, everything is way closer together, even in "suburb" areas. They typically don't have the traditional suburban neighborhoods that we do here. When my parents lived in China, they were used to walking to restaurants, the supermarket, school, the park.. everything was literally right outside their houses.

We've got it better here in Simi than in SD, but not in Flagstaff, you can get bus tickets for $40 ($20 for people w/disabilities), but the big advantage is that we can use the tickets whenever we want.

Egyptian here, a friend of mine went to China for month and realized all the 'chinese' food we are getting served at restaurants here..well..it's not really chinese. But maybe it's different in the US as some restaurant owners are native Chinese.

[Note from me: she just has a green card, so there's no "test" for that, like there is for citizenship. It's a process, and most of it just requires filling out forms, collecting evidence, submitting to the right place at the right time, paying the fees, etc. The last step of it does include a face-to-face interview with a consular officer, though. How that goes and what it's like depends on what your application looks like and, to a lesser extent hopefully, how their day is going and how their mood is. My wife approached this interview with the basic idea of just being friendly, proactive, and honest. It went very quickly and smoothly and she was just asked a few questions because we had submitted a lot of documentation beforehand. ]

[Note from me: Yeah, I'm sorry, it just isn't on the same scale. AT ALL. I know people like to say that America is becoming a totalitarian society, but as someone who has been living in a real one for the past few years, trust me, we've got a long way to go before we get there.]

The food? Is none of the Chinese food available in restaurants owned by Chinese the same as where you come from?

"The food in Chinese restaurants in America is not real Chinese food. And I am from North China; no one here knows how to cook any of those dishes. "

That is interesting. I have found that the Chinese food in restaurants is often "Americanized" but if I ask in places owned by people from China they will often prepare them traditionally for me on request.

I haven't had really exceptional Chinese food since I left California. There was a Sichuan restaurant there in Riverside and an excellent Chinese place in China Town near LA but I don't know that any of them served food from North China. Perhaps there is a demand for that specialty?

Those who are driving change in America greatly admire the way China suppresses the population and that could happen here virtually overnight. What would happen then is hard to predict. That will depend on how many choose to take up arms against those following orders to disarm them.

I suspect the only reason it has not happened yet is that they don't know what percentage of military and law enforcement with follow their unconstitutional orders and what percentage will side with the people instead of the wealthy elite.

Thanks to organizations like Oath Keepers and people like Alex Jones raising visibility and both spreading video content on YouTube and elsewhere, far more people know what is going on and where this all may lead than they probably ever expected to happen.

[Yes, yes, I know; but it's a question of degree. Like I said to someone else, you find me someone in the US who set themselves on fire to protest their land being seized, and then I'll agree what happens with eminent domain and what's happening in China are the same.]

[Interesting, but still very different. Even if the very speculative and pretty thinly sourced argument about eminent domain here is true, this would be hilarious to Chinese officials...

"So wait, you had to pass a law restricting the number of chickens? And then you ticketed his car for speeding? And then he took you to court and won, twice? And then you arrested him for violating other laws? WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST IMMEDIATELY BULLDOZE HIS HOUSE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT WITHOUT TELLING HIM?"]

[Note from me: However, having lived for significant periods of time in both countries, I don't think the US system is really comparable to China. I've never heard of people setting themselves on fire to protest land seizure in the US, for example.]

I'd tell her not to worry too much. It's usually only houses next to major freeways (when the freeway needs to be expanded)... this clause is rarely, rarely invoked, and when it is, it actually does benefit the population.

So it's not like houses are being bulldozed all over the place. Extremely rare.

Exactly. The US government will more than justly compensate you in the case that they use imminent domain to take your land from you. It might be an inconvenience but you it is not something to get riled up over.

"As in China, the efforts generally begin with an offer by the private group or government agency to purchase the land, and only become a question of eminent domain if the parties cannot negotiate a purchase price."

[Legally, yes. I mean in practice. I think it'd be hard for you to find a ton of people who feel like their houses were destroyed and they were unfairly compensated by the US government. I could find you 100 Chinese people like that pretty damn fast.]

I'm gonna help this guy out: you middle class college age suburbanites, 'corruption' in the US is just not a reality. There are incidents, but it is hardly the mob rule that affects place like China, Russia, etc. You really have no idea.

His point is that it can happen in both countries. The fact it doesn't happened in the US nearly as often is due to potential populist pressure (because more people find it unacceptable than in China, where people are used to hearing about it, and people are generally more detached -- i.e. "It's happening to another hundred million people in another province. Not our problem.") and also economics (US has much more practical/usable land per capita, for example).

If the US went through serious economic hardship (on par with the Great Depression, similar to what the Chinese or other countries deal with daily), then we could expect our gov't to throw its weight around more often.

Your wife is absolutely right to cherish what the US has. It just goes to show how important our superior economy is to us (as a large, multicultural country). It's not everything, but it's a big factor in pretty much everything we have, including our civil liberties.

When the Chinese gov't destroys people's house, they should get compensation and a new place to live (usually an apartment complex). Source: I'm Chinese and have family scattered across China, Taiwan, HK. If they don't, it usually means the official is corrupt, breaking the law, and trying his best to hide it from central authorities.

The problem is that China lacks rule of law (meaning that people in general -- civilians, gov't officials, military law enforcers themselves -- just don't respect the law as much as Americans do; it can't be fixed just by changing the people in power, the problem is endemic to the culture). Honestly, it would take major economic changes to fix this. One thing you might notice is the labour force distribution of the economy. In the US, over 70% of the labour force is in services (systems, law, etc), and in China, the labour force is still heavily invested in Manufacturing and Agriculture. So even before we consider size of economy (where US is much larger) and the populations involved, it's very obvious that systems, methodology, law, politics, enforcement... everything that would integrate the public with law would have less invested in China.

According to the chief exec of the Federal Reserve of Dallas, the lawyers in the US contribute twice as much to the GDP as all of our car manufacturers combined. That actually goes a long way to promoting/protecting Civil Liberties of individuals (and corporations). People in CHina just can't afford that.

A stronger economy will contribute to speeding up Chinese rule of law. It's not the perfect or only answer, but I strongly believe it would have strong positive impact on the matter.

EDIT: Sometimes, I wonder why I even bother providing honest perspective and public info (that you can verify from our own public CIA factbooks) when people just want to hear what they already think they know. Why even bother downvoting when this comment is so deep that few people are going to see it anyway?

This happened to my grandparents. In the 1950s, when New York was building a highway in Albany, they had to move a few houses in order to make an off-ramp. The house my great-grandfather build would have been squarely in the middle of a loop-style off-ramp. So the government had to pay for the moving of the house to nearby street.

I always thought it was awesome when entire houses were put on trucks and moved.

But they are compensated in china, often fairly, although the details of the compensation depends on how corrupt the official is. (the private developers will pay a high premium for the land, but the official often takes a large chunk). Houses are not moved because china want's to get rid of small houses and turn everything into high rises, hard to see anything below six stories in china now.

Well, lately it's been things like oil pipelines. But there are some cases where people are forced to move so that a city can bring in a new business; usually of a big chain. There have been other cases where cities try to demolish and rebuild with nicer houses that they think will bring in higher property taxes.

The number of cases is definitely in the tens of thousands, if not 100k by now.

I have no problem with eminent domain when they take my house to build a freeway or some other public utility for the betterment of the community. But not when they take my land and give it to a private company for development. Even if it would better the community, it's just not right.

Well, you're a criminal lawyer who can afford to live in Los Angeles. I would have to assume you live in a very nice neighborhood and a suburb at that. The government would not try to replace your home with a better one to raise property value and taxes. I would also assume that you don't live too close to any businesses, so there's not much reason to want your land to build a business yet. I think southern California has the wrong mix of environmentalists and already in place infrastructure to get away with something like a pipeline even if they did find oil. So...no.

Wasn't trying to pick a fight. Although you got prickly pretty quickly. This particular mistake is a pet peeve of mine the way mixing up their, they're, and there is a pet peeve. Basically, if you want to expound on a topic and you don't actually know what that topic is, you don't really look credible. Just sayin.

I left the US to go to China, and stay here.. I find it so much better here. Now so much fewer Chinese want to go abroad as the life here is becoming better and better. My quality of living is crazy compared to the US. even factory workers have a better lifestyle than college grads moving to NYC for work

what the fuck bullshit. tell me exactly what freedom is, and what it means to you here. if you think freedom is what makes america great then you are brainwashed like the masses. freedom of what, speech? are you protesting something here and exercising that freedom?

internet - like proxies don't exist in china. if you wanna look something up then it's not that hard to get by the great firewall of china. most people there don't bother because honestly, what does looking up tianamen square get you? does it somehow enlighten you to a different state? no forced housing demolitions or corruption? do you know who the lobbiest in washington work for? It ain't you and I, that's for sure.

[Note from me: My wife isn't going to comment on US politics because she doesn't know much about it. But for all those folks saying stuff like this, just move to China. Live there for a couple years. All your questions will be answered, and you will be cured of your "America is just like China, this is a totalitarian government!" delusion. Honestly, I have a lot of critical things to say about the US government, but if you think this isn't a freer country than China -- and if you think that isn't meaningful -- it's because you haven't experienced real oppression.

Or, let me put it this way: a Chinese friend of mine was arrested and detained without trial or access to a lawyer for nearly a month last year. Why? Because he was the owner of a website that permitted critical political discussions about the government. He had shut down the site months earlier after he was put under house arrest, but that didn't stop them from arresting and holding him for nearly thirty days with NO legal recourse whatsoever.

Does stuff like this happen to some people in the US? Sure. But how many of you really know anyone that has happened to? How many of you really know what it's like to feel your heart jump every time someone knocks on the door because it could be the police?

For my wife and I, being here means that we can continue to work on our film without fear that I could be deported or she could be arrested not because it is illegal, but because it's about a "sensitive" subject. Being here means that when some jackass TV host threatens to sue me and have the police investigate me (happened in China) we don't have to live in fear that he might actually be able to make that happen because even if the police DID arrest me, short of me somehow being defined as a terrorist, I have legal rights that would enable me to defend myself and clear my name. Being here means that I can talk freely with my friends about politics and NOT worry that they're going to be arrested later. Being here means not getting calls from those friends telling me to wipe my harddrive because the police asked about an interview I had conducted during their extralegal interrogations. Do I need to keep going?]